How to have a good learning experience

Sometimes the biggest challenges in learning a language have nothing to do with the language itself. Before you plunge into the infinite possibilities of a language, you need to prepare mentally for it.

This means managing your motivation and coming up with the right habits, among other things.

For some people, this is naturally easy, and they don’t need to “do anything”. However, if you are not one of them, this chapter is for you.

Why are you learning a language?

We are often told to “follow our passion”, but a growing body of evidence shows that the brain doesn't work like that. Rather, passion flows better in the opposite direction:

1. You first work hard.
2. The hard work makes you learn things.
3. The learning motivates you to work harder.

According to O’Keefe, Dweck, and Walton (2018), “urging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry”.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had another way to put it: “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important”.

Which is to say that if you intentionally spend time on something, with an open mind and genuine interest, you’ll appreciate it more, and passion will naturally follow. You don’t need to be passionate to learn a language: it will come if you let it.

What you do need, however, is purpose. You need to be very explicit about why you are learning a language. That is a more difficult question than what it looks like.

If I asked you why are you learning a language, chances are that your answer would start with “because I want...”

But that is a dangerous answer.

You might want to sound like a native, but if you are ok with dabbling, once you reach that level, you won’t have enough energy to keep pushing it further.

This is one of the major causes of the much dreaded intermediate plateau: If you want to reach an 8/10 but are happy enough with a 5/10, you’ll plateau exactly when you reach 5/10.

The plateau happens often halfway through the learning journey because it is at that point that learners can start using the language, more or less effectively, in simple daily situations. Since the same amount of effort will yield diminishing returns, there is an incentive to reduce the effort and, thus, stop making progress. Self-sabotage!

To avoid that trap you need to acknowledge that what you want doesn’t really matter. It is what you accept that draws the line.

Draw a line such you would not accept to fall below, and remind yourself of it every day.